Gloria Romero, former CA State Senator and former CA State Senate Majority Leader, speaks out in this stinging investigative report which shows how powerful the special interests are, even at the expense of the safety of our children from sexual predators.
According to Maplight, the four Democrat Senators in the powerful Education Committee who abstained from voting, which is the equivalent of a no vote in this case, included Wilmer Carter of Rialto who according to Maplight has received $7000 from the CTA since 2009 (she sold out for the cheapest price), Mike Eng of Alhambra who has received $18,000 since 2009, Betsy Butler of El Segundo who has received $11,000 from the CTA since 2009, and Das Williams of Santa Barbara, who has received over $30,000 since 2009.

SB 1530, proposed by state Sen. Alex Padilla, D-Pacoima, was introduced in response to the sex-abuse scandals at Miramonte Elementary and other campuses in Los Angeles Unified. It would have streamlined the process for terminating teachers in cases involving sex, drugs and violence against children.

The measure was supported by Los Angeles Unified officials, including several board members who testified during the hearing. However, the powerful California Teachers Association, as well as United Teachers Los Angeles, lobbied against it, saying it would have violated due process for teachers.

The vote of the 11-member committee was 5-2, with four abstentions. The measure needed six votes to advance.

Tuesday, July 17, Wayne Lusvardi, regular contributor to CalWatchDog.com, self employed real-estate appraiser, and formerly an eminent domain appraiser for over 20 years, joins Martha Montelongo, with John Seiler, Managing Editor at CalWatchDog.com, and Ben Boychuk, Associate Editor with City Journal.

Also on the program, Larry Sand, President ofCTEN, frequent contributor at L.A. Daily News, L.A. Times, City Journal, Union Watch, and more.

Almost half of CA’s budget goes to pay for Education, yet we’re at the bottom, or second from the bottom in results. The CA Teacher’s Union and all their bought and paid for politicians at all levels of government block any reforms, even the most narrowly tailored, that would modestly improve the chances for poor and lower middle class kids to have access to quality teachers and schools.

Two lawsuits have just been filed, to take on the teacher’s union, in the courts. Larry Sand will fill us in.

What a ripoff. San Bernardino County wants to use eminent domain to let a private mortgage lender cherry pick “underwater” mortgages without paying damages to the lenders. Doing so supposedly would stimulate the resale market for homes.

Larry Sand writes about the approach reformers are taking to combat the impenetrable block the CA Teacher’s Unions practices to prevent any kind of reform to policies such as seniority and tenure rules for teachers.

When politics fails, reformers turn to the courts. California’s Democrat-controlled state legislature has resisted reforms that threaten teacher-union power. Now two class-action lawsuits could undo the state’s longstanding seniority and tenure rules. On Tuesday, a Los Angeles Superior Court judge heard arguments from attorneys representing six families who say the nation’s second-largest school district has ignored the 40-year-old Stull Act, which requires the use of student performance in teacher evaluations. If successful, the lawsuit, filed last November, would require every school district in the Golden State to establish its own method of evaluating teachers—but all would need to use evidence of student learning based on standardized tests, just as 23 other states currently do.

A second lawsuit, filed last month on behalf of eight students from around the state, claims provisions of California’s education code—rigid tenure rules, a seniority-based firing system that ignores teacher quality, and a “due-process” system that makes it all but impossible to remove incompetent or criminal teachers—violate student rights.

Live Call in number: 1-818-602-4929Jan 3, 2012:Tonight live at 8 p.m. PT on Gadfly Radio, Martha Montelongo along with Ben Boychuk of CA City Journal and John Seiler of CalWatchDog.com. Steven Greenhut, the Editor in Chief at CalWatchDog, joins us to discuss the latest and hottest stories in CA politics, but especially, we want to talk about the how California’s RDAs [were] Hoisted on [Their] Own Petard.

Steve’s most recent book, Plunder, about Public Employee Union Benefits and Pensions are bankrupting the nation, is well known and regarded by serious reformers in the field, across the political spectrum nationwide.

But Greenhut also did a compelling and comprehensive book on RDAs or Redevelopment Associations, called Abuse of Power: How the Government Misuses Eminent Domain. Did he ever think he’d see this program be dissolved in California? How did it happen? The title of his report says it all in one sentence. We’ll have a chance to hear him talk about it in detail.

Every week we cover an important story concerning education and the struggle to transform it into an effective institution. This week we touch on two stories.

The other story is regarding Parents across Southern California Demanding CTA apologize for fear mongering and intimidation tactics used against families who want to organize for reform, and demands that the CTA retract denigrating statements dismissing parents’ interests, intentions and good will. Linda Serrato of the Parent Revolution joins us to talk about this story.

We’ll take your calls, questions and comments on the air at 1-818-602-4929 on on FB instant chat or Twitter.

I am a stand for liberty, integrity, empowerment, and prosperity for all people; a stand for vibrant and innovative small businesses that create jobs, that in the process of prospering, nurture and support creative and dynamic culture, in the work place, and in our personal lives.

Thank you for supporting our program, by listening, sponsoring, and or sharing this post with others. It’s a pleasure to share this program with CalWatchDog’s team of government policy watch dogs and the great investigative work they produce! Tuesday nights live, on Gadfly Radio in Southern California or where ever you are. California, the land of beauty and unlimited possibility because of the abundance of our greatest capital resource, our human resources, when we get it right. Join us. Or you can listen to a podcast later, if you miss the live call-in show by clicking on the white player to stream or the orange player to download and or subscribe to Gadfly on iTunes:

To understand the hopelessness of public education as it exists today, controlled and dominated by the teacher’s unions and their very effective marketing and political tactics and maneuvers you want to read Terry Moe’s book, “Special Interest.”

Steven Brills book, “Class Warfare” was superb at outlining the problem, and at chronicling it’s upward spiral and ascent to domination, and also at chronicling the evolution of the reform movement from within the two party political system, but predominantly from the within the ranks of Democrats who want reform and recognized the elephant in their living room–and I don’t mean the GOP’s elephant–I mean the Teacher’s Unions.

Moe, unlike Brill, doesn’t give in to the unions at the end of his book. He ends with hope and optimism, and a vision of one facet of viable solutions as a powerful anecdote: hybrid schools that utilize technology to solve the shortage of quality teachers, and to reverse our dismal rank, world wide–barley 40th…

Live Call in number: 1-818-602-4929October 18, 2011:Tonight live at 8 p.m. PT on Gadfly Radio, Ben Boychuk of CA City Journal and John Seiler of CalWatchDog.com, welcome CalWatchDog’s editor in chief Steven Greenhut, and former public defender and DA Mark Cabaniss.

We’ll ask Steve about the news, from bad to worse concerning California’s fiscal crisis, and the battle over what to do about it.

We’ll ask Mark what he thinks about District Attorney Raukaukus’s choice to only charge two of the six officers involved in the murder, and what he makes of the charges the DA did hand down.

KFI’s John and Ken host the number one drive time show in the country, second to New York City market in numbers, and first in monetized market share. Love ’em or hate ’em, if you’re in radio, you wish you had their numbers.

They’re populist and some of their political rants and perspectives line up well with the principles of liberty, sound fiscal policy and limited government that doesn’t infringe on a healthy entrepreneurial class, the middle class, the small business class.

Some of their ideas are reactionary. But that’s another topic. Tomorrow, Wednesday, Oct 19th, they are going to Fullerton, CA to support the recall of three sitting City Council members who make up the majority of the City of Fullerton’s City Council, and their reason is spot on for all the latter perspectives about their populism.

The issue that brought this recall into being was the police brutality against and murder of Kelly Thomas, a 37 year old 135 pound schizophrenic homeless man who also happened to be son of a former Orange County deputy sheriff and a loving caring father. The reason this case was not buried under the rug as so many police brutality cases and sometimes even the murder of a detained person or prisoner are, was the forming of an alliance between Kelly Thomas’s father and the writers of a local and popular blog called Friends for Fullerton’s Future.

Guest, Mark Cabaniss, who lives in the Sacramento area in Northern CA, is a former DA and a public defender. He has written on this case on at least three separate occasions and his pieces have been published at CalWatchDog, Friends For Fullerton’s Future Blog, the Greater LongBeach.com online news publication, and other publications. You can find a compilation of his works on this issue here.Each of the different op-eds he wrote on this case appeared is various different publications but are only listed here one time.

Tonight we’ll ask Mark to explain to us what he thinks about District Attorney Raukaukus’s choice to only charge two of the six officers involved in the murder, and what he makes of the charges the DA did hand down. L.A. Times Blog reported the D.A.’s charges like this:

Two Fullerton police officers have been criminally charged in the violent confrontation that left a homeless man dead, Orange County Dist. Atty. Tony Rackauckas announced Wednesday.

Officer Manuel Ramos has been charged with second-degree murder and involuntary manslaughter in connection with the beating of 37-year-old Kelly Thomas, a homeless schizophrenic man. Officer Jay Cicinelli has been charged with involuntary manslaughter and excessive use of force.

Are the charges fair? Can the public expect justice be served? Yes or no, and why?

We’ll talk with Steve about as much as we can and have time for, concerning the ongoing battle between citizens who want to reign in the costs, power and burdens of the Public Sector in California, and those who defend the status quo, and are pushing to up the costs of sustaining the current paradigm onto the tax payers, in terms of raising taxes, and reforming or diluting Proposition 13, raising fees, and further restricting citizens in cities or municipalities from enacting reforms at the local level to cut down the costs of their public sector services, employees, benefits and retirement pay.

Steve lived in Southern California until recently, and worked as an editor for the Opinion Section of the Orange County Register and their blog. He wrote a lot on police practices during his tenure at the O.C. Register and has much insight to share with us on the issue of the Kelly Thomas case, the DA’s charges, and the policy, politics and practices that enable police and sheriff Departments to develop into a culture of abusive practices.

California’s big public pension funds are already short tens of billions of dollars. An organization of accountants is about to make the picture look even worse. A proposed change to pension accounting standards could give more ammunition to conservatives seeking to reduce pension benefits for public sector workers. Gov. Jerry Brown is expected to issue a wide-ranging proposal to overhaul pensions sometime soon.

Baca says he was out of touch with county’s jails: The Los Angeles County sheriff said he failed to implement important reforms that could have minimized brutality. He also said his command staff has at times left him in the dark about jail conditions.

We’ll take your calls, questions and comments on the air at 1-818-602-4929.

I am a stand for liberty, freedom and prosperity for all people; a stand for vibrant and innovative small businesses that create jobs, that in the process of prospering, nurture and support creative and dynamic culture, in the work place, and in our personal lives.

Thank you for supporting our program, by listening, sponsoring, and or sharing this post with others.

It’s a pleasure to share this program with CalWatchDog’s team of government policy watch dogs and the great investigative work they produce!

Tuesday nights live, on Gadfly Radio in Southern California or where ever you are. California, the land of beauty and unlimited possibility because of the abundance of our greatest capital resource, our human resources, when we get it right. Join us.

Or you can listen to a podcast later, if you miss the live call-in show by clicking on the white player to stream or the orange player to download and or subscribe to Gadfly on iTunes:

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The status quo of education in the U.S. is destructive to our Nation, and to ignore this truth is to be numb, unconscious or in denial of reality.

"If an unfriendly foreign power had attempted to impose on America the mediocre educational performance that exists today, we might well have viewed it as an act of war. As it stands, we have allowed this to happen to ourselves. We have even squandered the gains in student achievement made in the wake of the Sputnik challenge. Moreover, we have dismantled essential support systems which helped make those gains possible. We have, in effect, been committing an act of unthinking, unilateral educational disarmament."--A Nation At Risk - April 1983

Drug War Clock for Current Year

Police arrested an estimated 858,408 persons for cannabis violations in 2009. Of those charged with cannabis violations, approximately 89 percent were charged with possession only.
Source: Uniform Crime Reports, Federal Bureau of Investigation Your tax dollars at work--but for whom?

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Dedicated to considerations of justice and the pursuit of goodness… "to sting people and whip them into a fury, all in the service of truth." --Plato on Socrates